


Daughter

by lajulie



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: F/M, Family, Miscarriage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-29
Updated: 2016-12-29
Packaged: 2018-09-13 02:06:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9101557
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lajulie/pseuds/lajulie
Summary: "The belonging you seek lies ahead."Rey is their daughter, but not in the way you might think.





	

I’m holding our daughter at last, Han. And you’re not here.

She’s not our daughter by blood, of course, though with her hazel eyes like yours and her dark brown hair like mine, she looks like she could be. But she’s our daughter, sure as Ben was our son. She’s our daughter the way I was Bail and Breha’s.

You saw it, you felt it too. I heard it in your voice in the briefing room on D’Qar, when you told me about the girl from Jakku, who stole the _Falcon_ and seemed to understand it like you and Chewie do. The scavenger who risked herself to get BB-8 back to us, who recognized you as a smuggler and not a general. Who all but ran screaming from Luke’s old lightsaber. As Force-blind as you are – _were_ – I think you even sensed the light within her. 

She’s the daughter we often dreamed about, you and me. After Ben went to bed, on late nights out on the balcony at the apartment, or snuggled up in our cabin on the _Falcon_ , we imagined her. We talked about a sister for Ben, a little dark-haired girl to chase you around the _Falcon_ and get her clothes messy helping you fix things. Maybe she’d dream of being a pilot, flying with the next generation of Rogues or with her old man. Maybe she’d dream of training with her uncle, becoming a Jedi. Maybe she’d choose something else, something neither of us had dreamed of for her. “Hopefully something not _too_ illegal,” you joked. Your scoundrel girl.

We tried. There were daughters, or would have been. Five of them flickered across the Force, gone before the day was up. I’d learned what that feeling was after I was pregnant with Ben, so I felt their presence, and then their absence. I didn’t tell you about most of them.

A couple of others stayed longer, but never long enough. You knew about those, because I told you after the light stayed for a full week, and we hoped together. You were there to hold me when one left at six weeks, another at ten. Chewie slipped once and told me about the time he found you crying in the cargo hold of the _Falcon_ , after the last one. You’d wanted to be strong for me, that’s why you were hiding your tears. Chewie told you, <<Quit being an idiot and go cry with your mate,>> and you did and we did, and it was just what I needed.

Evidently, Ben making it long enough to be born had been something of a miracle. The medics couldn’t say why none of the others did, but chalked it up to likely chromosomal damage, either from my chemical torture on the Death Star, or your time in carbonite. Either way, I chalked it up to Darth Fucking Vader. Just a few more deaths to add to his list.

But our daughter is here, now. I hope you knew, even in that brief window of time you spent together, that she had started to feel like you were her father. And that in that moment, the one that still rends me to think about, she felt the pain like a daughter would. Like I felt when Bail died, even above the cacophony of other voices screaming out within me. And in that moment, when Ben was lost for good, when that monster took him over and slaughtered you, I felt her pain in the Force like an echo of my own.

Afterward, when she got off the _Falcon_ , I recognized Rey immediately. She came straight to me, and I held her without words. A mother’s embrace.

You tried to bring me our son. He’s gone. But you did bring me our daughter.

I only wish you could be here too.


End file.
